Monday, November 22. 2010

There has been a certain amount of “when the hell did that happen?” in the last couple of months because, well, today Ada turned four. One of those paradoxes of major life changes; I have been a father forever, and yet it only happened yesterday, and when the hell did she gain four years?

It’s been a rolling two days of celebration; yesterday was her party day. On her third birthday Ada wanted more adult friends than children; this time around she invited 15 kids and only a small body of adults; they were scattered across friends from creche, soccer, Junglerama, Alliance Francaise, as well as children she’s know via our friends. Last year she enjoyed a ride on the Eastbourne Ferry for a play in Days Bay and lunch in a cafe; this year we booked a party at the Wellington Museum of City and Sea.

It turned out to be a fantastic venue. They laid on a room with face-painting, colouring-in, a guided tour of the museum with things they thought would appeal to the kids (including their mock-holographic movie with Maori creation myths), a visit from a giant costume dog (patterned after Paddy the Wanderer, a then well-known character on the waterfront in the inter-war years. Lunch was via Wholly Bagels, and there were little gift packs for the kids to take away. As far as I can tell the kids loved it, finishing up with them roaring around their big room with balloons in a race/balloon fight they worked out amongst themselves.

(Ada was going to wear her party clothes, but instead opted to wear her football uniform, having come straight from the game.)

All in all it was a fantastic day, with Ada coming home zonked out and spending most of the afternoon resting on the sofa and watching Microcosmos after explaining gently “I would like some time on my own.”

Today was to be much quieter; we both took the day off work. Morning was the unveiling of The New Bed. Or rather, the bits for the New Bed; originally we’d bought the standard single version of the Treehouse kit bed from Inhabit Design with an eye to building it up with the ladder and wendy house; this year was when we did that. Ada knew it was coming, but the whole business was deeply exciting for her. I managed to knock the extra kit bits on before breakfast, and then after we began to re-organise the room.

Disaster struck.

I had climbed on newly heightened bed to re-organise some things on the wall when I found myself standing on the floor amidst the ruins of the support struts that hold the slats in place, with a small girl having hysterics to one side at her broken birthday bed.

Pretty reasonable reaction if you ask me.

This was... unexpected. And not good. Definitely not good. For one thing, a broken birthday present at 9:30 is not what you’re after. Nor is the loss of the bed your daughter sleeps in. Not, come to that, is the thought that while, yes, I am quite large, I’m only as big as three or four hefty kids and shouldn’t it stand up to that?

Inspection showed the slat supports had come away, staples ripped out. At this point neither of us was feeling full of good-will. Inhabit, however, did a lot to change this; when they found out what happened, they mentioned that the Production Manager for the factory happened to be in the store, and he’d be happy to come up to the house and see what he could do. By 10 am John was inspecting it, had come to the conclusion it was a straightfoward fix, and offered to come back after a planned visit to a family member. At 12 he re-appeared, fixing the slat supports back to the bed with screws which, he made it clear, were the things that should have been used at the factory in the first place. He speculated that someone had stapled and then forgot to finish the job properly; that speculation was delivered with the air of a man who would be Having Words with someone, possibly several someones, about the Right Way To Do Things when he got back to the factory.

So, on the one hand: boo for the three-year old manufacturing defect. Yay for the incredibly quick setting right that saved Ada’s birthday.

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